Re: Ego

[fretz <tscom002 -at- 129 -dot- 25 -dot- 3 -dot- 11>]

Another writer writes about making technical writing more personable.
It is refreshing to read a piece that comes across as "friendly".  Anyone
else have thoughts?

>Standard practice
seems to be for the writer to be invisible,
>ego-less.  For a reference work, perhaps, but what about tutorials,
>introductory pieces, etc?

>** Often an identifiable writer-ego works well in third-party documentation,
>but
>   in the manufacturer's own documentation it can be cumbersome.  Every
>   company I've worked for suffers enough panic just producing accurate manuals
>   without making sure that the quality of humor is not strained.  I imagine
>   there's nothing more irritating to a user than a giggling writer who has
>   the facts wrong.

>   The Durante Effect is also a problem:  everybody wants to get inta da act.
>   Who decides what writers (or user interface developers) have the proper
>   personality to showcase?  I don't know any companies with in-house literary
>   critics.

>   Personally, for that reason, I'd exclude even amusing names like Phil
>   O'Dendron, but in general I agree strongly with Sue Gallagher's image
>   of "me the book."  The book shouldn't say "Help, I'm a creative genius
>   cruelly consigned to technical writing."  It should be conversational
>   for the sake of comfortable reading.  It should say, "I was born
>   just to help you."
>__________________________________________________________________________
>Mark L. Levinson, SEE Technologies, Box 544, Herzlia, Israel
>mark -at- matis -dot- ingr -dot- com | voice +972-9-584684, ext. 230 | fax +972-9-543917